


left its seeds (while i was sleeping)

by greenurr



Series: Single Parent Poe 'verse [3]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Grief/Mourning, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-15
Updated: 2016-01-15
Packaged: 2018-05-14 01:46:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,218
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5724865
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/greenurr/pseuds/greenurr
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What happens, happens, and everyone else is left to pick up the pieces. </p><p>  <i>She had gotten the call while she was washing dishes, and picked it up with soapy hands.</i><br/> <br/><i>You might want to be sitting down for this, Leia had said.</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	left its seeds (while i was sleeping)

**Author's Note:**

> Sorry, guys. I know this is probably not exactly what you were expecting, but I live off of pain.
> 
> (Also there is a brief scene near the beginning involving Rey throwing up, and cleaning up her vomit. It's not graphic, nor in any way related to an eating disorder, but if vomiting bothers you, be warned.)
> 
> The title comes from "The Sound of Silence" by Simon and Garfunkel. Everything is Simon and Garfunkel, always.

Rey gets the call on a Saturday, at 11:39 and her first thought is, _oh God, who’s going to take care of Chewie?_

It’s an inane, stupid question, of course. Chewie isn’t—wasn’t, just Han’s dog. Leia will take care of him, and their son. Ben? Kyle? She can’t remember. She can’t remember the name of Han’s son, and she feels awful, down to her bones. She knows that Han loves—loved him. How could she forget his name?

She had gotten the call while she was washing dishes, and picked it up with soapy hands.

You might want to be sitting down for this, Leia had said.

It was a stroke, Leia had said.

After the funeral, they would sit down with a lawyer and talk about what would happen to the garage, Leia had said.

What would happen to the garage. Rey doesn’t want it, really. Han had been training her to take over for him, once he retired, but they figured that was years away. They hadn’t put any urgency in it. Rey doesn’t know how to run a business. She just fixes cars. If Han is dead, then the garage is dead along with him.

Rey covers her mouth with shaky, soapy fingers.

It was a stroke. Nothing they could have done. He’d died in his bed.

That doesn’t seem right, to her. Han had always told her about his adventures when he was younger, before he’d settled down with Leia. He had been a smuggler, had toted immigrants across the Mexican border. He had always made it seem so exciting, the evil border guards, the beautiful, grateful women. He should have been shot down, in a duel, like an old Western.

He shouldn’t have died lying down. 

Rey walks to the window. It’s bright out, so bright it takes her eyes time to adjust. She blinks rapidly, and the image outside settles. There are children, playing, in the yard across the street. Not much of a yard, really, more a patch of old dirt. Not BB’s age, maybe a little bit older. They’re brothers, maybe, or just friends. One, the smaller of the two, pretends to stab the other. The bigger one clutches his chest, staggers, falls to the ground. The small boy totes his plastic sword in the air, cheering. The bigger boy comes out of his sprawl, laughing, jostling the other to let him have a turn with the sword.

They’re playing out death.

Rey thinks about what she was meaning to do today, before she got the call. Finn and Poe had taken BB to the library, to check out books and keep everyone out of Rey’s hair while she got stuff done. BB is in second grade now, and is a voracious reader, just like Finn. Poe’s a reader too, and Rey comes home sometimes to find all three of them perched on the couch, reading.

Did Han like to read? Rey doesn’t know.

She still hasn’t finished the dishes. After she does the dishes, she’ll have to fix the garbage disposal. It’s been backing up lately. She meant to fold the laundry that Finn had washed and Poe had sorted. And the kitchen table has a wobbly leg; she’ll need to fix that too.

She decides to at least finish the dishes and then see how she feels.

She hasn’t cried, which she thinks is strange. She’s always been a bit of a crier. Even foster care didn’t knock that out of her.

She can still hear the boys yelling from across the street, through the open window.

She then takes one look at the dried food stuck to the plates in the sink, and neatly, quietly, vomits into the garbage disposal section of the sink. She wipes her mouth, and tries to put it down the garbage disposal, but it’s backed up, and it just makes a terrible grinding noise. She turns off the spout, and now the watery vomit is nearly overflowing. She doesn’t know if the food particles floating in it are from the garbage disposal or from her. Her lips tremble, and she whirls away from the sink. The kitchen smells like puke, now. She has to deal with this.

She can’t deal with this.

She clears her throat, and breathes in and out a few times. She puts on a yellow dishwashing glove and reaches into the mess, readjusting the garbage disposal opening. There’s a sucking sound, and the watery vomit goes down the drain. She throws the glove in the trash.

Now she has to take out the trash.

She takes the trash bag out to the dumpster. It’s so, so bright. Leia hadn’t called Rey until mid-morning, nearly noon. Rey was probably pretty low on her priority list. Rey doesn’t blame Leia for it.

Leia had just thought he was sleeping late, she had said, sounding shaky for the first time during the phone call. She had woken up, and thought he was still asleep. Then a few hours later, she had gone to wake him up, and he had been cold. She didn’t know what time he had died. No one had told her yet.

The only thing that Rey can take from that is that Leia had been sleeping next to her dead husband, for at least part of the night, and hadn’t noticed.

Rey imagines turning over in bed and finding Finn there, cold. Imagines looking over to see Poe staring back at her with lifeless eyes. She shudders, even in the heat. Heads back inside.

She doesn’t know how long she sits in a kitchen chair, staring into space. It’s been a while, she guesses, when she hears the door open, hears Finn’s cheerful voice, asking a question.

Hears BB answer back.

 _Oh god,_ she thinks. _Someone’s going to have to explain this to BB._

Maybe it’s selfish, but Rey couldn’t stand for it to have to be her.

She hear Poe cheerfully chatting with BB, as they head the other way down the hallway, to the playroom that Rey and Finn had set up for her in their apartment. She hears Finn come her way, but can’t bring herself to turn and look at him.

“Hey, peanut,” he says. His voice is warm. Why is everything so warm? It should be cold out. Raining. This shouldn’t have happened on a sunny day.

“Han died,” she says. Her voice is scratchy. It’s good, it fits. She feels like she’s been scratched up.

“Oh my god,” says Finn, and rushes to her side. He cups her head in his hands, makes her look at him. “Are you okay?” he asks.

She nods, and lets out one gasp. “Yeah,” she says, watery, and then “I don’t want to cry. I don’t know why. I think if I cry it’ll be real. I don’t know what to do.”

He kisses her forehead. “Go nap,” he says, stroking her hair back 

“What?” she asks.

“Go take a nap,” he says.

“I just woke up a few hours ago,” she protests, weakly.

Finn shrugs. “You can’t cry if you’re sleeping, right?” he asks.

She is tired. He holds her hand as they walk to their bedroom together. They pause at the doorway.

“Do you want me to come in with you?” he asks. She shakes her head. She appreciates him, but she feels like being alone, now. 

He nods. “I’m going to go talk to Poe,” he says. She catches his elbow as he turns to leave.

“Can you, um… I don’t want to have to be the one to explain it to BB,” she says, and feels like crying again. Shuts it down. “I’m sorry, that’s selfish, but I don’t want to." 

“No, sweetheart,” says Finn, and hugs her. “Not selfish at all. I’m sure Poe will want to do it, he’s her dad.” She nods against his shoulder and disentangles herself, walks into the bedroom and shuts the door behind her. Gets onto the bed and lays on her back, above the covers, staring up at the ceiling. 

She wonders what Han was thinking about, when he fell asleep last night. Wonders what he was dreaming about, before he died.

Eventually, she drifts off to sleep.

When she wakes up, her phone says 4:26. It’s still light outside. She gets up, and pads to the living room. She stops in the hallway when she hears voices.

“It’s just, I didn’t know him very well,” she hears Finn say. “So it’s kind of weird for me.”

“Yeah, no, me too,” says Poe.

“I feel like this huge thing just happened to her, and all I can do is watch. I don’t feel any of it myself, I can’t relate.”

“I can’t think of anything I can do to help, that’s what’s bothering me,” says Poe. He does sound frustrated. “Anything concrete. I can cook or whatever, and take care of things around the house, and be there for her. Whatever she needs, obviously. But I can’t just make it go away. I feel like I can’t really help.”

She hears Finn sigh. “I don’t know man, it’s grief. The best thing we can do is listen, and be there for her, and take care of anything that needs taking care of.”

“It still doesn’t feel like enough,” says Poe. Finn hums in agreement.

Rey goes back into the bedroom, and falls asleep again. She wakes up to a little wriggly body against hers. It’s dark out. She doesn’t check the time.

“Hi,” BB whispers.

“Hi,” Rey whispers back.

“My great-grandma died once,” says BB, matter-of-fact. “When I was littler.”

“Were you sad?” asks Rey. She feels like she’s having this conversation as someone else, like a robot took over her brain and is feeding her lines.

“Not super,” says BB. “I didn’t know her real good. Daddy cried, though, at the funeral. Is there going to be a funeral?”

“I think so,” says Rey. “Later in the week.” BB’s head is so little, she barely makes an indent in the pillow next to Rey. Rey feels so heavy by comparison, like she’ll never get up from this bed.

“My great-grandma was real old. Mr. Solo wasn’t so old, was he?”

“No he wasn’t,” says Rey. “But sometimes these things happen.”

“Was Mr. Solo like your great-grandpa?” asks BB.

“No,” Rey says, and swallows through the lump in her throat. “He was more like my father. Like my dad.”

“He was like your daddy?” BB asks, in horror.

She lifts a chubby hand to place in on Rey’s cheek, and Rey breaks down. Deep, heavy, wracking sobs, completely silent. BB starts to look scared, and Rey cups her head and holds her against her chest so she doesn’t have to see.

“I’m sorry, baby,” Rey manages to get out. “I’m sorry if this is scaring you.”

“It’s okay,” she hears BB say, into Rey’s chest. “I would cry like that too, if my daddy died.”

Still, Rey manages to calm herself down, for BB’s sake. Rey runs careful fingers through BB’s hair, trying to work out the knots. The streaks are starting to fade. They should re-dye it.

“Baby, why don’t you go get your daddy, and Finn? Bring them in here, we can all cuddle.”

“That sounds nice,” says BB, and clambers her way out of bed.

When she opens the door, the light from the hallway hits Rey’s face.

***

The funeral is on Tuesday. Rey doesn’t know if Finn and Poe got off work or are just skipping, but they’re both there with her, in somber black suits. It would make sense if they got the day off. Both of their bosses are here. Leia Organa is regal in a stately dress, and Luke Skywalker, Leia’s twin brother and the principal of Finn’s school, is next to her looking as well groomed as he ever does.

She knows that Poe took BB out of class, at least for the afternoon, because she’s there as well, in a little brown dress and boots, sitting quietly on Poe’s lap. Rey can feel BB staring at her sometimes, and each time she turns around and gives BB what she hopes is a comforting smile. BB never looks very comforted.

It’s a Jewish funeral service, so there’s a lot of singing and speaking in Hebrew. Rey just lets it wash over her, doesn’t look in the little prayer book for a translation. She can hear Poe, on the other side of her, quietly reading the English in the book to BB. It’s enough for Rey.

Han had never been very religious, but he always said he had found a remote comfort in his wife’s faith. He had specified that he wanted his funeral to be Jewish, with a rabbi, like his wedding had been. He’d told Rey, once, that if there was a singular God, the Jews had figured it out first, and therefore, were probably the most correct about how to do it.

It’s an outdoor funeral, with a tent over a set up over fold up chairs to keep the sun off of the mourners. There’s a pretty good crowd. Full of p eople who knew Han from his old days, people who had had a car fixed by Han, people who knew Han through his wife, or through the small congregation of Jews in Jakku.

She barely takes her eyes off of the casket, up at the front of the tent. It’s not an open casket, and Rey is thankful for that. She doesn’t think she could stand seeing Han’s face still, clean-shaven and nice looking, painted up to look like he’s still alive. It’s enough to know that the body is there.

They’re in the second row, right behind Leia and her family. Han’s son is holding Chewie on his lap. Rey still can’t remember that boy’s name.

Finn is sitting to one side of Rey, holding her hand. Poe is sitting on her other side, with his shoulder resting against hers. BB puts a little hand to her cheek, once, to show her a grass doll she had made, with the green, heavily watered grass the graveyard spends thousands of dollars on upkeep on. BB does it again to give Rey a second doll.

“That one’s you,” she whispers, pointing to the first doll. “That one is Mr. Solo.” Rey swallows hard. Poe leans heavier against her shoulder. Finn holds her hand a little bit harder.

Rey doesn’t cry, the whole time. Neither does Leia. Her son starts crying as they lower Han into the ground, and Leia brings his head to lean against her shoulder. He holds Chewie so tightly the little dog yelps. Rey remembers when Han had told her that he and Leia had had their son late, and he worried that he was going to be in a wheelchair when he took his son to college. They had both laughed.

After the funeral is over, they head to the car to go to the reception at Leia’s house. They had gone over on Sunday night to sit shiva there. Sitting shiva is a Jewish tradition in which, after someone dies, the family has people over at their house every night, to keep them company and bring food. None of them were very good cooks, so Poe had picked up a bottle of wine along the way. It’s a nice tradition, Rey supposes. Keeps the house from feeling too empty.

On the way to the reception, Finn drives and Poe sits in the passenger seat. Rey climbs into the back with BB.

“Thank you for the dolls,” Rey says, leaning her head against the back of the seat. Her head has hurt constantly for the last few days. Apparently there are physical symptoms of grief, and one of them is a pounding headache.

“You’re welcome,” says BB. The rest of the ride is quiet. Poe glances over his shoulder worriedly, once or twice, and she catches Finn looking at her in the rearview mirror. She tries to smile to show she’s okay, but neither of them look like they believe it. 

When they get to the reception, they all gather little plates of finger food and sit in a loose circle. Then, anyone can tell a story about Han, if they want to do so. Leia and Rey both pass, but Luke tells a funny story about how he first met Han in college. It was in a bar fight, when Luke had gone for a post thesis-defense drink with his aging Professor, Obi-Wan Kenobi. Apparently Professor Kenobi was better in a bar fight than anyone could have guessed. The story is funny, and sweet. Other people tell stories like it. Han Solo might have been a grump, but he was someone who adventures happened around.

That part of the reception ends, and people break into little pairings and groups to chat. Poe and Finn strike up a conversation with Luke, and BB runs off to play with the other children who were dragged to the funeral and reception. At once, it’s too much for Rey, and she drops her paper plate in the trash, heads out the front door to get some much-needed air.

Leia is sitting out on the stoop. She’s taken her heels off, and Rey can guess that the seat of her dress is dusty from the step. 

Leia turns around. “Hi, honey,” she says.

Rey doesn’t know Leia very well. Despite hearing all of Han’s stories about her, they’ve only met in person a handful of times. But she knows that sitting in front of her is a woman who loved Han as much as Rey loved Han.

That’s enough for Rey, who sits down next to Leia and kicks her own heels off.

“Well, that’s that,” says Leia.

Rey nods.

“I can’t wait for all these fucking people to get out of my house,” says Leia, and digs around in the potted plant next to her until she unearths a pack of cigarettes. She holds them up. “Do you mind?”

“Not at all,” Rey says. Leia nods and pulls a lighter out of her purse, lights a cigarette and takes a long drag, blows out the smoke.

“You know what I was about to say?” asks Leia. “’Don’t tell Han.’ God, he had a fit when I made him stop smoking before Ben was born. It wasn’t good for the baby, I said, but I always kept a pack around to smoke when I got stressed.” Leia shakes her head, blows out smoke on a long sigh. “God, fuck this,” she says.

And Rey figures that, sometimes, that’s all you can do. All you can say is “fuck this,” as you shake your fist at the sky. “Fuck this, this shouldn’t have happened. This isn’t fair,” you say, and no one else cares. Then you go, and you have a cigarette, or a glass of whiskey, or you watch the sunset with the only other woman on Earth who understands how you feel. Then you go inside and you pick up your boyfriend’s daughter, and you kiss her all over her face and hold your ear up to her chest, so you can hear her little heart beat.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for sticking with me you guys. I am genuinely so blown away by the response I have been getting to this little series. I'm fairly new to writing fic, and you guys have been so kind and generous with your praise and comments. It's so wonderful. Thank you guys, really, so much.
> 
> So I promise there's going to be a happier fic next time! It'll be very cute. Lots of cuddles and family feels and smut, I promise. 
> 
> Again, thank you very much for reading. Please feel free to leave comments or kudos!


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